


Home Again, Whole Again

by GalaxyBrainworms



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst, F/M, Incest, PWP, Tender - Freeform, an overabundance of sincerity, but not about the incest, post heavensward, takes place around 3.4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:21:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27026509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalaxyBrainworms/pseuds/GalaxyBrainworms
Summary: Home isn't a place; home is wherever they can hold each other in the dark.Alisaie has finally returned, and Alphinaud is all too aware of how much lost time they have to make up for.
Relationships: Alisaie Leveilleur/Alphinaud Leveilleur
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	Home Again, Whole Again

They almost couldn’t look at each other.

Both of them had always hated the idea that looking your twin in the face was like looking in a mirror. No matter the similarities, no matter the resemblance, no matter how much people who didn’t know them well struggled to tell them apart, Alphinaud could never look at Alisaie and see anyone but her. The little twitch at the corner of her mouth when she was irritated and trying to hide it. The way her cheeks were just ever so infinitesimally softer and rounder than his. The mischievous glint in her eye. They were Alisaie.

But right now, sitting crosslegged a few feet apart from her on the bed she’d been recovering in, he imagined that the look on his face really must be absolutely indistinguishable from hers. The same nervous blush, the same mix of apprehension and relief and guilt. The same darting eyes that would look anywhere but at the other’s face. The same doubt.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, and instantly cursed himself for the inanity of it. Small talk had never been his strong suit.

Rather than annoyance, however, a small smile danced around the corners of her lips. “As much as I appreciate the concern, the answer remains the same as the last three times you’ve asked me that in the last hour. I’m sore. I’m tired. But I’m okay. Ishgardian medicine might be a little… out of date, but Y’shtola knows what she’s doing.”

He couldn’t get the image out of his mind. Bursting into Fortemps manor, hearing his sister had returned, only to find her pale and shaking and covered in sweat. Gasping for breath. Poisoned. Maybe dying. There would have been no crueler joke for the fates to play than to reunite them after so long, after being so stubborn and bullheaded, just to lose her again. She’d spent several days recuperating in this bed, and there had been so many people — Scions, friends, nurses — bustling in and out that they had hardly had a moment’s space to be alone together. To reconnect, and to talk about what they were both thinking. About what fools they’d been.

He stole a glance at her face, only to find her openly watching him, clearly amused. She was still a little paler than she should have been, and she wasn’t moving with quite the same brash energy she usually possessed, but she no longer looked as though she were in imminent danger of wasting away while he wasn’t looking. A familiar coil of warmth tugged at his gut, mixing with the weird blend of regret and relief that was already there. He snorted. “You’ve still got a long way to go. That retort wasn’t nearly cutting enough. Unless you’ve gone soft…?”

Alisaie leaned forward and swatted amiably at his head. She was still sluggish enough that he could have gotten out of the way pretty easily, but a good wallop would have almost been nostalgic right now. “The only thing that’s gone soft is you, I think. I’ve hardly seen you turn your nose up at anything in the last couple of days. Where’s the arrogant little bastard I know and love?”

_ Steel clashing. _

_ A blade at his back. _

_ Screams of rage and betrayal and pain. _

He smiled bitterly. “He got what was coming to him. The problem is, he took a lot of innocent people down with him when he did.”

The smile on her lips turned to a frown. To someone who didn’t know her as well as he, it might have looked like irritation. Maybe even anger. He, however, had learned to read his sister before he’d learned to read books. She was concerned. Worried. A little taken off guard, a little confused. She hadn’t heard, had she? “What do you mean?”

_ Minfilia. Yda. Papalymo. Raubahn. Nanamo. _ So many people hurt by his foolish pride. He shook his head. “There… will be time for all of that later. It’s not a story to rush through, and even less a story for a reunion. Let it suffice, for now, that I… missed you terribly, and without your blunt, abrasive honesty, I made mistakes. You’ve always been there to rein me in.”

She studied his face, and he felt his cheeks heat up. What was she looking for? A lie? The pain? She’d find the latter, he was sure, and the former wouldn’t be there. She opened her mouth to speak, seemed to think better of whatever she was about to say, and closed it again. They sat in silence for a long few breaths, him looking resolutely at the wall, her at his face. When she did speak, she was halting, unsure. “I… missed you,” she said. Alisaie wasn’t traditionally a person who was good at talking about her feelings; she could usually trust that Alphinaud could read her well enough to understand what she was feeling without having to do anything so embarrassing as speak it aloud. “We’ve never spent so long apart.” She sounded stilted. Embarrassed, and a little uncomfortable. “I was okay at first. Good, even. I was so focused on proving you wrong, on… I don’t know. The novelty of it. The longer it went on, though, the harder it got. The worse I…” She closed her eyes, and then it was his turn to study her. She hated what she was doing, but it was also important enough to her to get it out that he knew not to interrupt. “I made mistakes too. I needed your egghead advice, sometimes. You… rein me in, too.”

Alphinaud swallowed hard, a lump forming in his throat.  _ It wasn’t just me _ . It was more than a little selfish, but more than once, he’d found himself afraid that he was the only one struggling with it. Afraid that she would have been realizing she didn’t need or want him, and that he would be left without her forever. He didn’t like that she was sad, but… she understood, he thought. “Well,” he said, much more lightly than he actually felt, “now you know. It’s like that time you and, um…” Gods, what had her name been? “You know, that Lalafell girl you were friends with got so drunk that you spent about a week hungover, just because you could. You learned a lesson.”

He wasn’t sure if she was going to laugh or try to hit him, but in the end, she did neither. She opened her eyes, and they were shimmering with unshed tears. The sight was like a punch to the throat, and his own vision wavered. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry I left.” How many times had she ever actually, directly apologized for something to him? Even if he couldn’t read the strained sincerity on her face, that alone would have told him exactly how upset she’d really been without him.

He understood that. He’d been at least as upset without her.

With a grunt, he scooted forward on the upsettingly squeaky bed until their knees were touching. Neither of them were good at this kind of thing; it was easier to obfuscate the vulnerability behind arrogance, or callousness, or coldness, or laughter. She watched him draw closer, and sniffled. Alisaie was not a sniffler, so the incongruity of it almost made him laugh, which probably would have been a death sentence at this particular moment in time. Instead, he reached out with one gentle, hesitant hand, and touched her cheek. It was softer than he’d remembered, and warmer. Almost feverish, but... that wasn’t it. Her eyes widened, and she blinked at him. “Alisaie,” he said firmly, and the irony that they seemed to have switched their usual roles in this moment was not lost on him. “I have at least as much to apologize for as you do. You left, but I pushed you away. We both made mistakes, but we’re here now. We’re together again.”

She closed her eyes, took one shaky breath, then nodded. A modicum of control returned to her, and though her eyes still shone when she opened them again, she was no longer shaking. He had missed those eyes. He’d missed so much. He’d missed  _ her _ .

Almost as though he’d skipped forward several seconds in time, missing all the leadup, he found her lips on his. She’d moved quickly enough to catch him off guard, but not roughly. For the first time since they’d parted ways in Ul’dah all those many months ago, she kissed him. Her lips were dry, and he was almost unused to the feel of her mouth being so tender, but the stupid thought that he’d never mistake anyone else’s lips for hers still flashed through his mind before he’d reoriented himself enough to kiss her back. Her face radiated warmth, and his hand slipped from her cheek to instead put his arms around her and pull her closer. She took that as the invitation it was, and leaned forward, haltingly putting her arms around him in return.

The last time they’d been together like this, they’d known each other so well and had these acts of love perfected almost to a science; this time, after so long, there was an awkwardness and stiffness to it that was almost funny. It was as though their bodies remembered, but at the same time… didn’t. They remembered the words, but not the melody. Her hand tangled in the back of his hair. His stroked her back. It was almost chaste; almost like the first time, all those years ago.

His lips were the first to part, and barely had the kiss begun to intensify before she had slipped her tongue into his mouth. It took him by such surprise that he very nearly laughed, and though he stopped himself just short, she sensed  _ something _ .

With a face as bright red as he’d ever seen it, she broke the kiss, pulling back just far enough to look at him. “What?” she asked, flustered and suspicious and embarrassed. “What’s so funny?” The kind of defensive edge she only got when she thought she was being made fun of.

In a way, seeing Alisaie so uncharacteristically self-conscious gave him strength. This time, he let himself laugh, but there was nothing mocking in it. “Nothing,” he said through his grin. “You’re just as pushy as ever.”

If he’d thought her cheeks could have gotten any more crimson, they would have at that moment. “What—” she started to protest, but then it was his turn to catch  _ her _ off guard with a kiss. For a moment, what his lips met was stiff and unyielding — not as though she didn’t want the kiss, but as though she were still trying to figure out a way to counter his teasing. That didn’t last long, though, before she was returning the kiss.

How old had they been, then? Twelve? Thirteen, maybe? Barely more than children, far away from home for the first time. Everything had been different and unfamiliar, everyone around them had been a stranger. They’d had to be strong for each other, and they’d taken refuge in each other’s arms. He’d had a panic attack, something he’d been prone to in those days, and she’d held him tight, stroking his hair and murmuring to him in that gentle way she had only ever really used when gentleness was what he needed to keep himself from breaking. She’d kissed him on the cheek, and in that hazy, disoriented state, he’d kissed her on the mouth.

That first moment had been infinitely more awkward and hesitant and weird than this had been, but the memory of it wiped away a little of his nervous trepidation in a wave of nostalgia. She still felt the way he remembered. He hoped he did, too.

This time, it was Alphinaud who broke the kiss, pulling back just enough to look his sister in the eyes. She was starting to get that slightly dazed look in her eye she got when she was desperate, and she squirmed slightly. His breath caught, and his trousers were very suddenly much too tight. She knew that look was one of his weak spots, and once she’d figured that out, he’d never been sure exactly how much of it was unconscious and how much of it was specifically to get a reaction out of him. Whatever pretentious, romantic, responsible thing he’d been about to say vacated his mind completely, and all that was left was her. “I-I,” he stammered uselessly. “I know um, you’re still recovering, so if this is too much then please—”

“Shut up,” she whispered, and then more or less tackled him. For one brief, dizzying second, he thought the back of his head was going to crack against the unforgiving stone wall, but then, once again, all coherent thought was blown straight out of his head. She straddled him, a hand on each side of his face, her eyes fluttering closed, and kissed him with a hunger and a desperation that he felt reflected in himself. She mumbled something that might have been “You talk too much,’ but between her lips on his and her tongue in his mouth, it was almost unintelligible. It had been so long for both of them, so much had been missing, that they needed it now, needed it all at once. They needed each other. Her breath was hot against his face, her hands firm, but still gentle. Her hips moved against his, grinding against him through the altogether too thick fabric of their pants, and she gasped, sending a jolt and a shiver through his whole body.

His hands found her hips and slowly traced their way up her body, like a blind man trying to find his way somewhere familiar through touch. Before he’d hardly gotten farther north than her navel, though, she made a sound like a strangled growl and broke the kiss just long enough to send her scratchy shirt sailing across the room. He barely had time to catch his breath before she was on him again, and  _ gods _ , she was just as soft and smooth as she’d been the last time. On her side, there was an unfamiliar patch of roughness — perhaps a scar from some wound she must have taken not long after they’d parted — and while one hand explored the (admittedly slightly bony) expanse of her back, his other found something much easier to grab ahold of.

He was pleased to discover that her breasts were still the perfect size to fit in his hand. She arched her back into the touch, pressing herself into the palm of his hand with a tiny noise that wasn’t quite a whine. Her hand, still in his hair, clenched and unclenched needily, grasping and loosening and grasping and loosening.

There was a time when he’d have gotten so nervous that it would have been a coinflip whether he’d shut down or not. He’d been arrogant, maybe, but he’d also been brittle, and finding himself beneath a desperate Alisaie was often enough to send him on a bit of a nervous spiral in those early days; not because she made him feel bad, but because he wanted so desperately to be  _ good _ , and all too aware that he had no idea what he was doing. An image flashed unbidden to his mind, a scrap of a memory from all those years ago. They’d been intimate together maybe three whole times at that point, and the idea of his sheer inadequacy of his ability to properly please her had struck him like a lightning bolt from the Twelve themselves. She’d gotten frustrated at his sudden case of mild paralysis, and did what she later said with an angry blush was the only thing she could think of to break him out of it — she’d put him in her mouth for the first time.

It was something to laugh about now, but it really had been quite embarrassing at the time.

He ran his thumb over the skin of her breast, almost light enough to tickle, until he felt her shiver; then he switched it up, dragging a finger over her always-sensitive nipple. She squeaked into his mouth, as though this were somehow new and unexpected, and he laughed into the kiss. For this slight, she grunted at him with something approximating outrage, and jerked her hips against his, hard, as if in revenge. This time, it was his turn to shudder, and for a few moments his mind was once again wiped blank, all thoughts replaced with love and need and desperation and hunger and yes, lust. He lost the rhythm of the kiss for a moment, and Alisaie seized the opportunity. The hand in his hair tightened, pulling his head back, and as he gasped, she pressed her tongue against his throat, tracing a line from his jugular to his jawbone to his cheek. Her eyes were open and hungry, looking at him almost like a prime cut of meat to be devoured, and as he opened his mouth to take another shuddering breath, it was filled with her.

He needed her. He needed her so bad it was almost physically painful, but just as he started working up the mental coordination to suggest such a thing, she wavered. In one moment, she was in total control. Aggressive, energetic, flushed with excitement and need. In the next, her whole body wavered, her eyes almost unfocusing, her cheeks paling. She gasped, but this wasn’t a gasp of pleasure so much as one of dizziness. 

Instantly, his brain lurched painfully out of lust and into concern. She tried to kiss him again, to pretend as though nothing had happened, but he twisted his face away from the attempt, much as  _ that _ pained him. She looked mildly outraged by this, but he shook his head. “Alisaie, what happened? Are you okay?”

With a dramatic roll of her eyes, she snorted. “I’m fine, Alphinaud. You really know how to kill a moment, don’t you?”

“No one better,” he said with an air of false pompousness. “Seriously, though. You looked like you were going to pass out.”

Though her expression gave no sign that anything was wrong, the bead of sweat on her forehead and the slight pall that had come over her cheeks said otherwise. He could almost see the gears turning in her head as she deliberated over whether to deflect or downplay whatever was wrong. Finally, though, she sighed, perhaps sensing that he wasn’t going to let this one go. “I got lightheaded, Alphinaud. That’s all. It happens. I’m a big girl. I’m fine.”

_ I don’t think almost passing out is fine, _ he thought, but did not say. He  _ must _ have grown since the last time they’d been together like this; the Alphinaud of a year ago most certainly would have blundered directly into that kind of casual belittling. “The chirurgeons said the poison you got was terrible,” he said instead. “You might not be recovered completely. Maybe this isn’t the time—”

A frustrated sound escaped her lips, and she pulled back to fully sit up. Though she still straddled him, and though he was still painfully aware of how he was pressing into her through their clothes, and though he wanted nothing more than to stare at her (truly magnificent, if not  _ large _ ) breasts, he did not break. “Alphinaud…” She groaned. “Come on, don’t be so  _ responsible _ all the time. We both need this.” She wiggled her hips against him for effect; it was as obvious to her that he was ready to burst as it was to himself.

“We don’t need you passing out and cracking your head on the wall because you were being too stubborn to not be on top,” he retorted. “I don’t want to have to take the time to dress your unconscious body before I run and get someone to help if you pass out on me.”

“Then don’t make me be on top,” she said, a low buzz in her voice, and as though somehow it were his fault entirely that he had found himself under her. “You know I hate begging. Don’t make me beg.”

Well, that wasn’t entirely true, especially in bed, but he wisely decided not to bring _ that _ one up either. It was a bad idea to do anything right now, wasn’t it? If she was feeling that woozy, no matter how much either of them wanted it, no matter how much he couldn’t stop thinking about it, no matter how long it had been… they should wait, right? That was what his brain told him.

His brain wasn’t completely driving this carriage, though.

He scooted backwards, which wasn’t entirely an easy task, given that he was flat on his back and she was on top of him. “Get on your back,” he said firmly, and vaguely, distantly wondered, as he always did in moments like these, where this assertive, almost genuinely  _ confident _ Alphinaud was when he actually needed him.

Her eyes went wide, and she scrambled away from him,  _ flump _ ing down onto her back on the mattress in perhaps the least graceful, dignified manner he’d ever seen from her. In the time it took him to sit up, she had somehow already gone from partially undressed to completely nude, and as it always did, the sight of her took his breath away. For a few moments, he forgot entirely what he was planning to do next, and just drank her in. The moment she’d stopped being vertical, the color had started to come back to her face, and the lack of focus in her eyes had started looking more needy than dizzy once again. She looked up at him, expectant, eyes bright with anticipation. She squirmed, as though unable to contain whatever she was feeling. Her hand drifted slowly between her legs, and she bit her lip, her fingers tracing small circles over herself. She probably didn’t even realize she was doing it, and that made him smile. 

She blinked, as though wondering whether she was being made fun of, but he didn’t give her long to think about it. His paralysis snapped, and he went from sitting to lying on his stomach, looking her dead in the eyes, dragging his tongue agonizingly slowly over her. 

Even after all this time, she tasted just the same.

Her whole body spasmed with surprise and pleasure, and she had to clamp a hand over her own mouth to keep a startled moan from spilling out. She clearly hadn’t expected him to do this any more than he had. 

After that first attack, he retreated, planting tender kisses along her thighs, her hips, her stomach, taking his time. Each bit of contact drew another shiver, another gasp, another barely contained whine, and he let himself feel a little bit powerful about it. He knew her better than he knew himself. He’d heard her own first fumblings with exploring her own body, though he’d been pretending to be asleep, and she’d claimed the same had been true for her. They’d come into their sexuality together. They’d experimented together. They’d learned together. They were compatible in just about every way two people could be compatible.

He knew the way her face would twist and slacken and tense when his tongue lapped at her. He knew the way she would grasp at his hair when his hands danced around her — tight, but not too tight, as though she wanted so badly to yank and pull but had just enough self control remaining to pull back from that. He knew the exact gasp and stifled moan that she wouldn’t quite be able to contain when he slipped a finger into her, and he knew how receptive and warm and ready her body would be when he did. When it came to playing his sister’s body, he was a maestro.

Almost as though she could hear his thoughts as she had them (but more likely because she could see the smug glint in his eye as he watched her face), she swatted weakly at his face. “Don’t… ah…” Her whole body trembled, and her hips jerked up against his mouth in a way that was quite clearly involuntary. “Don’t get a big head,” she finally managed, but she had to clamp her hand down over her mouth again as he slid a mischievous second finger into her. 

As much as he wanted to take his time, as much as he wanted to draw this out… He wanted her. He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything or anyone else before in his life. 

Just as he thought he could no longer bear the anticipation, just as his own impatience started to get in the way, Alisaie tensed, her thighs squeezed his head, and he gentle gasping turned to strangled, half-suppressed whines. He could see the orgasm coming, see it building within her, feel it in her skin and her movements and her warmth—

He pulled back, still tasting her on his lips, withdrawing his fingers from her. Instantly, she started to shake, staring at him with a look that was somehow both a glare and a plea. Her hands tightened in his hair, and she tried to pull him back down, lifting her hips to meet him, but he resisted.

Instead, he sat back, fumbling with his pants while she dazedly watched. The difficulty he had getting them off was more than a little embarrassing, and she’d probably tease him pretty mercilessly about it later, but right now, he didn’t think that was the first thing on either of their minds. After much too long and entirely too much struggling, he tossed the last of his garments to the floor, where they fell in a rough heap and were immediately forgotten. He was trying not to rush and doing an awful job of it; the soft sound of the cloth hitting floor had hardly faded from his ears by the time he was on top of her.

Propped up on his elbows, he paused, looking down at her. No matter what happened, Alisaie was never anything less than beautiful, but in this moment… there was always something substantial. Ephemeral. Like in moments like these, he understood some truth that he spent all the rest of his waking life grasping for. He saw himself reflected in her eyes. Not in some literal sense, despite their appearances, and not, he thought, in an arrogant or self-centered sense. He wondered if she saw herself reflected in him. 

Everything was still. Everything was quiet. Neither of them wanted to break away from this moment, no matter how desperately both of them needed what came next.

Alisaie was the first to speak. “I missed you,” she whispered, vulnerable in a way she would never dream to be in front of anyone but him, even if their relationship had been something that they didn’t need to hide. Her hand brushed his cheek, cool fingertips running over his skin as though feeling it for the first time. “I don’t want to do that again. Not… for so long.”

Alphinaud, who prided himself on his intellect, on his ability to speak, was almost at a loss for words. For all that he wanted to be the one with all the answers, for all that he wanted to lead by example and to be confident and strong and assertive… His words often failed in moments like this. He couldn’t lie. He couldn’t pretend to be anything other than himself. Not even a slightly cooler, more collected version of himself. “No,” he said, not trusting himself to say much more. “I don’t either.” He closed his eyes, letting his forehead fall to rest against hers. It almost felt as though their hearts were beating as one.

“I love you,” Alisaie said. Alphinaud knew what it took for her to say something so nakedly sentimental, without couching it in layers of irony or playfulness or teasing or deniability. 

“I love you,” he replied, and hoped she could feel the truth in it. “Are you sure?”

He felt her nod against him.

“Please, just…” He faltered. “If you need to stop, or if you start feeling—”

Her lips pressed gently against his, cutting him off. “You talk too much,” she whispered, but he could feel the smile in it.

Alphinaud inhaled slowly, exhaled… and then pressed into her. It was almost overwhelming, even from that first moment. The familiar pressure, the familiar warmth, the sound of her gasp and the shake of her body…

Alphinaud never felt as complete as he did when they joined together as one. Like they weren’t two souls taking refuge in each other, but one soul, split between two bodies, briefly remembering what it felt like to be whole. 

He took a shuddering breath, basking in the feeling, in the intimacy, of the feeling of her body beneath him and against him and around him and part of him. Alisaie let out a soft sound, barely more than a whispered breath, and her fingertips rested on his cheek as though that was where they belonged.

And then, slowly… agonizingly slowly… He moved. As he pulled himself back, away from her hips, almost to the point of falling out of her, he opened his eyes. Hers were still closed, her cheeks flushed with color, her lips slightly agape. And just when it seemed as though he were going to pull out of her completely… he pushed forward again. This time, she  _ did _ moan, more than a little loudly. He laughed quietly, and even those vibrations were enough to send ripples of pleasure through him. “You do remember where we are, dear Alisaie, do you not?” Laughter danced at the edges of his whispered voice, and she glared up at him, struggling though she was to keep her eyes focused. He built a soft rhythm, his body against hers, and she responded in kind, her movements almost instantly falling into harmony with his. They knew each other so well, after all.

They kissed, their breaths comingling, stifling each other’s gasps and sighs, and with each gentle thrust, it was as though the barriers between them broke down a little more, as though the closer they came to mutual climax, the less separate they became. 

The bed squeaked beneath them, as if in protest, but neither of them heard it. The world outside this room no longer existed. Neither did the room itself, for that matter, or the bed upon which they lay, or anything but the two of them. All there was in the universe were the way they moved, the way they sounded, the way they felt.

They fit together like two pieces of a child’s puzzle, like the lock and the key, like the ship and the harbor, but no ship, no puzzle, no lock had ever felt such mutual ecstasy. 

In the beginning, there had been a kind of thrill in the transgression. From the start, neither of them had been under any illusions that their relationship was anything approaching normal, and in some small way, the fact that they were doing something undoubtedly wrong by sleeping with each other had been part of what made it so fun. But the more times it happened, the more times they found themselves together, the more times they became one, the more that feeling faded to nothing. Transgression was transitory. What replaced it was something deeper, more profound, than either of them had ever expected to find in each other. Sleeping together wasn’t fulfilling because it was wrong, but because it was  _ right _ . 

Had they grown up far apart, with different faces and voices and histories, only finding each other late in life, could that ever have been as meaningful as this? If they hadn’t spent their lives together since before they could even speak, would they ever even have become friends, or would they simply have clashed without that mutual understanding? The fact that they were twins was something to overcome, but it was also something that made all of this possible.

There was no voice he’d rather hear sighing in his ear.

There was no face he’d rather see enraptured in ecstasy.

There was no body he’d rather feel moving against his.

In that moment, he had none of those thoughts in anything so concrete and definable as  _ language _ . It was a feeling, a need, a certainty.

“Alisaie,” he whispered, and coherence drifted through his mind long enough for him to notice that no longer was the rhythm slow, no longer were his thrusts gentle. They were hard and fast, relentless and uncontrolled, and the rhythm with which Alisaie’s body met his was precisely in sync. His whole body tingled, every thrust sending ripples of pleasure and pressure through him

“Alphinaud,” she whispered back, her nails digging into his back, and the sound of his name on her lips nearly pushed him over the edge right then and there. She was close, too. She was tightening around him, her breath was coming faster and faster with each thrust, her eyes fluttered and fluttered and fluttered.

He started to whisper her name again, but he’d barely gotten the first syllable out when the pressure finally hit a crescendo, no longer able to be contained, and exploded into a pleasure so all-consuming that it left room for nothing else. Beneath him, at the first pulse of his climax within her, Alisaie’s whole body tightened, her breath catching in her throat, her eyes snapping wide as dinner plates. If he hadn’t already been past the point of no return, he would have blown straight over that line. They came together, the way they always did, the way they always would. Her pleasure was indistinguishable from his. He thrust, and thrust, and thrust, and each time a new wave of it blanked him out again, feeling himself  _ release _ , feeling  _ her _ , feeling himself  _ fill _ her…

For the briefest of moments, it was as though there was no separation between them at all. Truest bliss, greater even than the physical or romantic sensations.  _ Connection. _

And then the moment had passed. Their movements grew weaker, and weaker, until he all but collapsed atop her. They were both drenched in sweat, both breathing as heavy as if they’d run from Ul’dah to Gridania without rest, both drifting in their post-coital bliss. He didn’t have the energy to pull himself off and out of her, and even if he had, he didn’t have the desire. He wanted this to last as long as possible, before the connection was broken and they found themselves fully separate people again. Alisaie, for her part, made absolutely no move to push him off, or to push away, or to protest the mess they were both no doubt making by not scrambling to clean the sheets. 

They would have to eventually. No moment could last forever, no matter how special. But they could make it last a little bit longer. The fact that the moment would end didn’t mean they had to rush to get there. 

He didn’t have the strength to lift his head, and she hardly seemed to even have the strength to open her eyes. Soon, no doubt, they’d fall asleep together, and later, no doubt, they’d have to scramble and dress and hide the evidence and bicker over whose fault that was and who made how much noise, and other silly, meaningless things. But for now… Neither of them spoke. Neither of them needed to. Words would have been redundant. Instead, his hand found hers, and they clasped each other tight.


End file.
